Mass spectrometry imaging reveals brain-region specific changes in metabolism and acetylcholine levels in experimental Parkinson’s disease and L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia

There is evidence that cholinergic alterations are linked to various motor and non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. We therefore used mass spectrometry imaging to investigate regional changes in acetylcholine abundance in the brain of a non-human primate model of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia (LID). We also present an experimental design for performing untargeted analysis using MALDI-MSI with multiple experiments incorporating quality control samples to monitor experimental variability. We observed that MPTP treatment (i) led to reductions in putaminal acetylcholine levels that persisted after L-DOPA treatment and (ii) appeared to induce a shift of choline metabolism from α-glycerophosphocholine towards betaine. LID animals exhibited reduced levels of various metabolites important for brain homeostasis including S-adenosylmethionine, glutathione, adenosine monophosphate, and acylcarnitines. The vasculature marker heme B was upregulated in the putamen of LID animals, suggesting increased blood-flow in the dyskinetic putamen. These results provide new insights into pathological choline-related metabolic changes in PD and LID.